I've been to the UK to visit a friend. Very fancy trip! I've been to Nottingham and Birmingham. While the former gave me the right input to a true british city, with a story behind and a future ahead (represented by these nuclear plants I photographed? hope not!), the latter, a 2-millions citizens city, resembles very much an american city.
Birmingham impressed me, not completely in a good way. It has skyscrapers, but not very nice or tall, though very grey. The core of the city is not a church or a square, but a Mall, the Bullring. To reach the main night-entertainment street, Broad str., you have to pass through a shopping center instead of an arch or a loggia or an old palace and there's no other way to bypass it on foot.
What then? Ah, yep, weekend evenings: in broad street, there's a lot of discos, and disco-pubs, anyway a lot of places for in-people, for cool-people, for good-looking people, no way you can find a "sincere" pub and take a pint of ale in peace. Along that street, there are crowds of young people in fancy dresses, nearly naked, even with the worst weather ever (for which, they don't give a shit, never) screaming, laughing, waiting in long cues to get into their place to spend the night with loud music, several drinks and maybe a fuck. To control all that tide of human bodies and drunken people, tens of guards work there at night, at the entrance of the places, or along the street, or facilitating the cue for taxis. People are crazy there!
Another thing I must say about England is that you never feel secure along the streets, not only at night. I heard many episodes which happened recently, therefore you should always keep an eye around yourself.
People from Asia, Africa and near-east are everywhere and they almost speak in a fluent british accent, meaning they're UK citizens since generations. They anyway live often in ghettos.
Let me take Small Heath as an example: Small Heath is a Birmingham district, populated by muslims, africans and asians. There you shouldn't dare making eye contact along the streets, people says.
This is strange to me, as England is a country that has experienced immigrations for centuries.
England is a very awkward country to my eyes. Much similar to the US, in fact, than I believed. A crazy country, whose sights and smells I'll never forget.
